


Tinker Tailor Gardener Spy

by TheoMiller



Series: tinker tailor gardener spy [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artistic Liberties, Gen, Mostly Canon Compliant, Tailoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 23:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9263063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: AU where nearly everything is the same, except Garak is just a tailor.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "The point is, if you lie all the time, nobody's going to believe you, even when you're telling the truth."  
> "Are you sure that's the point, doctor?"  
> "Of course. What else could it be?"  
> "Never tell the same lie twice."  
> \- Bashir & Garak (Season 2, episode 20 - "Improbable Cause")

He looms threateningly over one fabric merchant, because he's got a headache and hasn't slept and this idiot really thinks he can convince Elim Garak, son of a gardener and a housekeeper, that Andorian-made heavyweight netting - used to keep Tellarite swarm flies from going throw open windows on those planets the Federation was foolish enough to colonize despite their infestation with the invasive insects - is going to replace Bolean tulle as a staple of layered skirts.

And then the rumors start. Well, there have always been rumors, ever since the other laborers' children found out his parents worked for Enabran Tain. But it's really that obnoxious offworlder merchant who gives it widespread traction.

He's not far past the age of majority then. By the time he's old enough to be firmly established as a reliable tailor in Kardasi'or, people are uniformly uneasy around him. Elim uses it to his advantage, because that's the Cardassian way. Tain seems faintly amused by it; Mila remains concerned by her son's reputation.

But there are many tailors in the capital, so he starts travelling - a travelling tailor is a rare and powerful thing, since clothing is such an important part of status and respect. (It's little wonder that humans had to grovel to other species and form a Federation to propagate the galaxy in a way that's remotely successful, if they believe that their Starfleet uniforms are in any way commanding.)

He's in a rather unsavory port town on one of the Cardassian occupied planets when he overhears discussion of an Obsidian Order member named Garak, supposedly handpicked by Tain to run the Order in his eventual absence.

Elim looks at the camera he knows is hidden in the weave of a nearby tapestry and arches his brow ridges. He started noticing the little ways that the Order liked to hide their equipment from a young age, but Mila told him that he ought to never mention it, because people would underestimate him. He liked when people underestimated him. He got to watch their eyes go wide as he, Elim Garak, proved to be as truly Cardassian as the son of any gul.

And because the actual Order analysts are probably enjoying the chaos of these rumors as much as he is - not only do they give him an edge in haggling over prices, they wildly mislead the general public about the Order's operations - he leans over the shoulder of one of the gossips. "I heard," he says, pitching his voice low and rough, "that he once got a confession out of someone without laying a finger on them."

Somehow this becomes a salient tale of how he stared down an enemy of the Empire until he was begging to confess just to get away from Garak's paralyzing stare.

But the rumors start to bore him as he gets older. It's exhausting to see so many fools believing obvious lies about him. He stops fanning the flames, and eventually people lose interest enough that he's mostly ignored, though of course no one forgets to watch their backs around him. Perhaps there's hope for Cardassia yet.

He's on the other side of Cardassia Prime when his father dies. He takes up gardening as a hobby in his father's honor – hoping, perhaps, to find a way to connect to him in his absence as he had never managed while his father lived – and when he proves as adept at that as his father had been, he takes on a position as a gardener for a man named Dukat.

Dukat has an arrogant son who irks Elim to his core from the moment he lays eyes on the slimy little worm. The feeling is entirely mutual.

Garak quickly discovers that Dukat-the-younger is a coward, despite his supposedly promising military career. He starts "innocently" walking up behind Dukat so quietly as to startle him when he finally makes a noise. He delights in the little rages Dukat flies into when he's been spooked, and starts practicing walking across the gardens unheard. A botanist grudgingly lets Garak hire her as a personal tutor, although she remarks repeatedly that as a male, he can't ever expect to truly understand the nuances of biology, and that "even his mother" would be hard pressed to understand it, being a housekeeper. He doesn't mind the comment about males being poor scientists - he's always had far higher aptitude scores than his male peers, leaving him grouped with female peers more often than not during his school years - but the comment about his mother rankles. Mila was more than capable of becoming more than a housekeeper but, as a good Cardassian must, she had recognized that laborers would always be necessary in society, and applied herself to her role in the Empire as dutifully as any gul or legate, if not more so.

So when he repays her in part with his services as a tailor, he sews a few trick seams into her dresses so that they might break open at inopportune moments. He checks into her career later and is delighted to find she hadn't succeeded as much as a person of her intellect ought. There's even video of her dress exposing her shoulders midway through a research proposal.

But he'd gotten what he wanted out of her: knowledge of plants throughout the stretches of the Empire, and even most of the exotic plants beyond their reaches, in Federation and Romulan territories.

And he delights in using that knowledge to make the garden thrive via symbiotic relationships, and also in terrorizing Dukat the younger. He finds plants that cause itching, and mixes them into Dukat's toiletries, specifically the lotion he applied to his neck ridges to make them shine. Unfortunately it isn't a terribly public occasion wherein Dukat scratches at his neck in a way that looked very inappropriate, but it was still an embarrassment for the thin-skinned soldier.

When Dukat comes to accuse him of the trick - at least he had decent instincts - Elim smiles pleasantly, reacting to Dukat's spitting rage with slow, unconcerned blinks, and even unloads a wagon full of plants while Dukat postures, ignoring him pointedly.

"I'm afraid I don't know any plants that could cause you to massage your neck ridges in public," he says, when Dukat reaches the point of being too angry to speak. "I mostly know how to take care of plants, and which ones are safe to eat.

"This one, for instance," he adds, pointing to a harmless plant that became quite toxic when boiled, "will render an adult male infertile with only a few milliliters."

Dukat goes pale.

Elim's smile widens.

Dukat flees, and Elim is conspicuously not fired by Dukat the elder, despite his son's threats.

It becomes a moot point later, when the elder Dukat is found guilty of treason.

Tain himself comes, and the mutual hatred between Dukat and Elim settles into something a lot darker than a series of pranks. Dukat has evidently learnt of his (entirely fabricated) illustrious career with the Obsidian Order. Whatever he's heard, the hand that Tain rests on Elim's shoulder clearly confirms them.

Things become more complicated after that. Dukat the younger goes on to prove his loyalty to the Empire by squashing a few Bajoran revolts, but the tide is turning. Not just in Bajor, but across Cardassia, something is changing. He feels very deeply that Bajor is just a spot of leaf blight heralding root rot deep within the Empire.

But that's tantamount to treason, so he does as his mother taught him and keeps that to himself.

And then the headaches get worse.

The doctors are helpless. He has ever increasing episodes, and continuing to use painkillers that will ultimately do nothing is a drain on state resources. He can't blame them for turning him away.

But it doesn't make the kanar taste less bitter on his tongue.

And then he wakes up and his head is clear for the first time in months, and Mila has been sitting at his bedside.

She tells the doctors that what she used to save him is classified by the Obsidian Order. And she uses an validation code that makes the blood drain from their faces, and that's when he realizes.

His mother has made a deal with Enabran Tain to save him.

"But what leverage could you possibly have?" He asks her quietly, once they're in the shuttle.

"Don't ask me about that, Elim."

But he's not an idiot.

He figures out the botanist's most recent password and goes into the University research catalogues, where he digs up the scant research into debilitating illness.

He finds that what he suffers from is genetic. In fact, it's often called orphan's-illness, because the parent who passed it down often dies from it at around his age - by which time most Cardassians have produced at least one child, in that most basic service to the state.

Elim is childless for perhaps the most selfish of reasons, and for the very reason Mila has cautioned him all his life: he's more often than not the cleverest person in any room, and most people are incredibly, mind-numbingly boring.

Perhaps the only people he knows who could match him in wits are Mila and Enabran Tain.

So it's not so strange that Mila is especially close to Tain, despite being his housekeeper. Close enough that she knew an access code from the Obsidian Order, one that she'd somehow used to save his life.

The med scanner tells him that what saved him was a tiny implant, nestled into his brain, and he's no doctor, but he knows enough about the brain to know it's not going anywhere without taking him with it.

She'd known the cause of his illness and the cure for it, and the latter was classified technology. Technology that the quiet, mild-mannered gardener who'd raised him hadn't had.

He doesn't tell Mila that he knows of his true parentage. He doesn't even think about his parentage. About whether his father had known, about how Tain had never called him by his surname, about the unfamiliar shape of the name "Elim Tain" on his tongue, quickly discarded.

But it's quickly obvious, nonetheless, that all members of their secretive trio know that the others are equally aware of the lie that hangs among them.

And he knows Tain cannot possibly allow Mila to live. Not after she'd used his access code. And if Tain had concerned himself with Elim's wellbeing, the way a Cardassian father ought, he would never have come so close to death. They are a liability - Mila more than Elim, perhaps - and so Elim does what he does best: he makes a nuisance of himself.

He slips inside, silently, and waits in Tain's office.

Tain lets him stew a while before settling back in the seat. "You can come out now, Elim."

Elim steps out into the open, but he waits for Tain to talk first. Tain has always liked the sound of his own voice.

"What are you doing, Elim?" Tain asks, shaking his head. "You have potential, my boy, too much potential to squander doing something as foolish as this."

"Then you know I've got the potential to go through with my threats."

" _Are_ you threatening me?"

He lifts his chin, but keeps his hands folded politely behind his back, and his stance the one he uses for customers, expression pleasant. "If you kill her, you will be executed for treason. I've made certain of it. In a certain manner of speaking, you could call that a threat. In fact, one might go so far as to call it blackmail, from a certain perspective. But truly, can it be either of those things if you are not planning to kill Mila? How can I threaten or blackmail you into _not_ doing what you are already not doing?"

"My dear boy—"

"Why do you call me that?" He interrupts.

Tain's expression shifts almost too quickly to follow, but Elim knows his face. He has followed this man since he was a child, when 'Uncle Enebran' would take walks around the gardens, and Elim would fall into step behind him, delighted to have the attention of someone as important as him. Tain had begun to represent (and maybe even eclipse, in some ways) the beauty and glory of Cardassia in his eyes. He was everything a good Cardassian should be: loyal, clever, involved in the workings of the Empire.

And now Elim knows – with more certainty than DNA and genetics – that all those years he spent waiting for the slightest scrap of affection and approval from this person who stood for everything he valued, Tain had known that Elim was his son, but had never claimed him as his own. Not even as a protégé. He had seen something in Elim that came up wanting.

"Ah," he says, when Tain doesn't answer. He cocks his head. "I should've seen it sooner. In fact, I'm surprised no-one else has seen it. Or perhaps they have… What would your enemies do, if a little rumor proved true? How quickly do you think they would pounce? Do you think they could convince the public that everything they've ever heard is the truth? And how much more salacious will the details become, if they are bolstered by your version of the truth?"

"You've always been a little too full of yourself, boy. Do you truly imagine you can do this without retaliation?"

"I don't care about retaliation. You could kill me a hundred times, but I'll still win, because if you kill her, you and your legacy will be destroyed."

Tain smiles. "How naïve you are, Elim, to believe that death is all you have to fear."

The Obsidian Order could torture him, but if some bright young upstart saw a weakness in Tain, he could be ruined just as easily as if Elim himself had done it. If anyone were to torture him, it would have to be Tain. And Elim isn't telling Tain anything.

"Very well, my boy. To assuage your delusional paranoias, I will agree, on my honor as a Cardassian, to allow Mila to live, despite whatever elaborate conspiracy you've imagined to inspire me to have my housekeeper assassinated."

 _But_.

"But to threaten me, within my own home? I hardly believed it of you. This betrayal—"

" _I_ betrayed _you_?"

"—you're simply a danger to yourself, and to the Empire." He starts to rise from his seat, bracing one hand on his desk.

Elim moves quickly. He has the laser cutter focused on Tain's left eye before Tain can even fully wrap a hand around the weapon. "I suggest you remove your hand.I have a shuttle waiting. But I'll be watching you, and as you've said, I am _quite_ paranoid."

"And yet not paranoid enough to have brought a proper weapon to my office."

"I modified it a little," says Elim. "It was a little limited for my purposes. It used to struggle to cut thicker material. Now I daresay it could sear through even the densest _tissue_ in a fine line, wherever I should happen to aim it. Makes precision work with fabric somewhat easier, you see."

"All I see is an arrogant fool demonstrating ingratitude for his long-time benefactor."

"See whichever version of the truth suits your needs. You always have."

He presses his thumbprint to the control in his hand, and a moment later, the teleporter activates. He steps across the cockpit of the shuttle to the pilot's seat and punches in a course for the shortest route out of Cardassian space.

When he disembarks to exchange the shuttle for enough latinum to reach Romulus, there is too much light but not enough warmth, and his head _aches_ , and the first rumor rolls in: subspace chatter suggests that Cardassia might be withdrawing from Bajor.

"How long will you be on Romulus?"

"Not long," he says, "not so long at all."

-

Despite the echo, Garak's footfalls make no sound in the airlock as he pads out of the shuttle. Moving quietly has become second nature. Romulans are light-footed by nature, and a  _very_ interesting woman who'd patronized his shop during his brief stint as a cobbler had told him that the best predators, the apex predators, have always been the ones who can sneak up on their prey.

It's disconcerting, however, to be treated as an apex predator before anyone learns his name. He hasn't bared his teeth at anyone, or looked a little too intently at anyone, or deliberately spread rumors about himself. It's almost like being back on Cardassia, where knowing who a stranger is the moment you lay eyes on him is as necessary as breathing in some cases. And all over again, he's only as much as those came before him, nothing more, nothing less.

 _Just like home_.

He doesn't let himself slip into pretending. He's a good liar, even to himself, but that way lies madness.

Terok Nor isn't Cardassia.

It's not even an outpost, not anymore. Nor is it called Terok Nor; it’s been renamed Deep Space Nine, and the place is crawling with Bajorans in clean-cut uniforms who watch him warily. But they are at peace now, and there is nothing they can do, not publicly.

But the structure and interfaces are familiar enough. As are the mindless actions of unpacking his fabric stores and setting up mirrors and racks and mannequins. He's getting _old_. Too old for moving among outposts and colonies and planets with every passing whim. He's seen half the galaxy, and now all he wants is to go _home_ , and Deep Space Nine is close enough as to be almost torturous in its proximity.

This isn't home, or even a facsimile. But it's a castoff of Cardassia like him, and for now, it will have to be enough.


End file.
